


and it echoes when i breathe (until all you see is my ghost)

by thefigureinthecorner



Category: The AM Archives (Podcast), The Bright Sessions (Podcast)
Genre: Asphyxiation, Blood, Canon Compliant, Canon Dialogue, Gen, Internal Monologue, Major Character Injury, POV Second Person, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-29
Updated: 2019-12-29
Packaged: 2021-02-27 06:16:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,771
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22022428
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thefigureinthecorner/pseuds/thefigureinthecorner
Summary: Joan is scared.Helen sounds smug.And something is very, very wrong.You don’t want Joan to worry.Owen POV fic; spoilers for the end of AM Archives 14/beginning of AM Archives 15.
Relationships: Joan Bright & Owen Thompson | Agent Green
Comments: 3
Kudos: 12
Collections: BrightGreen Fanfics, Owen Green





	and it echoes when i breathe (until all you see is my ghost)

**Author's Note:**

> title is from 'i of the storm' by of monsters and men
> 
> hooooooooo boy this scene fucked me up and continues to fuck me up. solution? make it sadder

“Joan?”

“ _Owen?”_

The pain doesn’t register before the shock and fear on her face does. You’re not even entirely sure what’s happening at first-- There was an impact. There’s a scalpel buried in your chest. Your body doesn’t really feel like it’s yours. You should be able to feel that.

You can’t.

It doesn’t register until Helen twists the knife and yanks it out, and _that’s_ when you cry out in pain, collapsing to the tile floor. Joan runs over and catches you as you fall and slowly lowers you to the ground and oh.

You can’t breathe.

“Owen—” Joan looks concerned. She rounds on Helen, face twisting from fear to anger-- “ _What_ did you _do?”_

Something is wrong.

“I solved a problem.”

Joan is scared.

Helen sounds smug.

And something is very, very wrong.

You don’t want Joan to worry.

“I couldn’t just— I thought she was hurting you.”

“Oh my god, Owen, you’re— keep pressure on it, and—“ She presses her hands over your own, where you’ve been trying to hold on to the wound, and you cough at the pain. Somewhere, above all that, you notice something that your brain has evidently deemed more important than your own hurt.

“You’re bleeding.”

You taste blood.

“Ooh, that sounds like a punctured lung! Nasty stuff.”

Oh.

That’s what’s wrong.

Huh.

“ _How could you do this?”_

That’s probably not good.

“How could you think I wouldn’t? Get up.”

“ _No—“_

_“Get up._ We still have that phone call to make—“

“Okay, Helen. I hope you’re happy with your temper tantrum.”

Ellie’s here?

“ _Ellie?”_

She wasn’t supposed to care.

“You have my attention. If you want to _keep_ it, we’re gonna have to talk. Face-to-face. I’ll be in the foyer for the next five minutes, don’t be late.”

She said she didn’t.

Helen laughs-- no, laugh isn’t the right word, it’s really a cackle, isn’t it? She cackles and crouches down to your eye level where you’re lying on the ground and you want to flinch away but you’re in too much pain to move and anyway, there’s tile behind your back. There’s nowhere to flinch to.

“Green! Oh, Green Green Green! I thought I’d overestimated you!”

And-- yeah. You’d thought so too.

She grabs your face on either side and squeezes a bit and you try to turn your head away but she forces you to make eye contact. She’s close enough that, were the hallway any brighter, you might have been able to make out her eye color, but as it is, it’s far too dark to really see much of anything.

Joan hovers over you protectively, tries to push Helen away. Helen doesn’t budge.

“ _Don’t. Touch him.”_

“Aw, I guess I was wrong.” She pauses, considering. “Or— right the first time, yeah, let’s just say right the first time. Thank you, that means a lot.” She smiles-- a condescending, forced-sweet smile-- and pats your face before letting go and standing up.

“I won’t go with you.”

“I don’t need you anymore, Dr. Bright! I got what I wanted! I could stick you. Just like I stuck him. Leave you two bleeding all over each other in this hallway?”

No.

“So why don’t you.”

_No._

“Well, I don’t wanna get… _predictable._ And— you trusted me when nobody else did. Even though you shouldn’t have.” She starts singing, more to herself than to either of you, and if, somehow, you make it out of this, you’re not going to be able to think of that song the same way ever again. “ _I remember when, I remember, I remember when I lost my mind…_ hm. Catchy. Hope I don’t see you around, Dr. Bright.”

Joan glares at her back as she walks away, but her attention is quickly drawn to you-- you start coughing, and the coughing turns into wheezing, and breathing _hurts._ Every time you try it feels like Helen’s twisting the scalpel further. But she’s not. The scalpel is lying on the ground exactly where it fell, coated in your own blood.

“Owen? _Owen.”_

“I’m fine. I’m-- I need you to--” The words aren’t coming out right. You can’t think properly. “She’s gonna try and kill Ellie,” you finish, and it wasn’t what you wanted to say, but it’s true. She is. Ellie needs to know. Ellie needs to leave.

“I don’t care about that right now, we need to get you a, a doctor, or--”

“Joan, just, listen.”

“Just keep. Pressure. On the wound, okay? And--”

“Joan.”

“God, Owen--”

“I’m sorry.”

You’re both crying now. She shakes her head.

“Just hold on, keep pressure--”

She pulls off her cardigan and pushes your hand away, and it falls limply at your side; your grip had been getting weaker and now you don’t really feel like you’re able to move your hands, or your arms, or do much of anything. Your head is spinning.

Joan presses the cardigan into the wound and you can’t stop the pained scream that rips its way out of your throat when she does.

It hurts.

It _hurts._

It had dulled somewhat, or maybe you’d gotten used to it, but you want to curl in on yourself and protect the wound and your arms and legs have both flown up off the ground to try to do just that, but moving just makes it hurt more.

“Here-- okay, stay still, stay still, you’re just, you’re losing a lot of blood,” Joan soothes, and you try to speak around the pain again.

“You can’t let her hurt anyone else.”

“Ellie can handle herself.”

She’s not going anywhere.

You don’t want to feel relieved by this, don’t want Ellie to get hurt, but you _are_ relieved. You’re relieved that you’ll at least have time to say--

“I’m so sorry, Joan.”

But the words sound feeble when they come out. They’re not enough. You don’t have time to say anything that will ever be enough.

You don’t have time.

“Owen, _stop--”_

You don’t have _time._

“No, just let me say this. I’m sorry. For all the things I did. I’m sorry I betrayed you. I should’ve-- I should’ve done more to fix it, I’m so sorry.”

“It’s, it’s alright, Owen, it’s alright--”

“No, it’s not, it’s not alright, it’s-- one of the--”

You’re cut off by your own coughing, and it’s endlessly frustrating. There’s blood in your throat, there’s blood in your lungs, there’s blood on Joan’s hands. There’s blood pooling on the ground around both of you.

_You don’t have time._

“We need to-- we need a-- _help!_ Somebody, please! Sam, Jackson!”

Ah. Jackson.

“He’s a good man.”

“ _What?”_

“Agent Crawford-- Jackson. He’s a-- he’s a better man than I ever was.”

This isn’t what you wanted to say. You want to nudge her towards him, make sure she’s happy, make sure she continues to let herself be open and vulnerable around him, but instead you end up telling her he’s better than you.

You hope that this is enough.

“No, no, you’re making things better, you’re _trying_ to make things better, there’s still _time_ to-- to, to--”

There isn’t, though. Your vision is going black around the edges. You can tell even in the dark of the hallway, dimly lit only by backup lights and exit signs.

You shake your head.

“I don’t think there is, Joan. But it’s okay. It’s okay, I’m gonna be okay, I just-- I just _need_ you to--”

You’re cut off by your own coughing again and you have to bite back the groan of frustration that comes with that, because you need to conserve that air to tell Joan everything, because you know. You know what’s coming.

“Owen, _stop,_ you are _not_ going to die.”

And, god, she sounds. So certain of that.

You almost want to apologize for dying, but that helps nobody right now.

“I dunno, I don’t feel my best, Joan.”

It’s getting harder to breathe, and you’re pretty sure your lung has collapsed. Your chest feels weird. Breathing with one lung feels weird. It doesn’t even hurt that much anymore, but you’re not sure if that’s good or if that’s your brain shutting down, but based on the fact that you’re getting too weak to keep forcing your lung to take in air, you’re… pretty sure it’s the latter.

Well.

That’s not ideal.

Joan keeps her hands pressed dutifully to your wound, blood soaking through her cardigan, and you wince. It had been her favorite.

“Wow. Your sweater, you loved that sweater. Heh, guess it’s all bloody now.”

She’s crying harder now and-- no, that was the wrong thing to say, wasn’t it? You’re not good at this. You’re really, really not good at this.

You’ve _never_ been good at this but of all the times for your brain to be disconnecting, of all the times to be fumbling through your words-- why _now?_

You _don’t. Have. Time._

“Goddammit-- somebody help, please! Oliver, Mags!”

You shake your head again.

“No, no, they’re doing important work, you’ve got to let them do it.”

You can’t see much of anything.

“Owen, you are _bleeding out,_ I _have_ to go get help.”

You’d shake your head a third time but you can’t… move it.

“No, no, please just-- stay. I need you to stay, please, I need you to--”

You don’t have enough breath left to say any of what you have left. The sentences are too long, the apologies alone would take days, and Joan-- Joan isn’t even who you should be apologizing to, is she? Not her alone. You’ve hurt far more than just her, but--

But none of them are here.

She is.

Your eyes close and you very, very faintly feel her jostle you and-- ah. That’s right.

Final words.

Those are important.

“Owen. _Owen,_ you _have_ to stay awake, just, just tell me what I need to do, please, just tell me.”

Those are important, right?

You open your eyes again, but it’s not like it matters much.

“I… need…”

“I-- I forgive you, okay? I forgive you. I _forgive_ you.”

No-- no, that’s not right, is it? She shouldn’t be forgiving you.

She shouldn’t.

“No, that’s not it… Joan.”

Every time you blink it’s a fight to open your eyes again.

You’d stop fighting, but-- you don’t want to scare her again.

You want to see her.

You can’t, not really, not very well, but-- she’s there. Through the dark blur that’s fallen over your vision, she’s there.

“Then what, then what, tell me, just please, just please, just--”

One final breath.

Last chance.

“I love you, Joan. And I need you to be happy.”


End file.
